Fourth of July Upon the Hudson

Happy Fourth of July!

Here are some celebrants in New York in the 1850s, the Puffin family. They are looking forward to some mint juleps and brandy cocktails, with the probable exceptions of Mr. Paul Crayon, the poetic suitor of Miss Puffin (he is under her parasol) and the poodle, who is named Carlo.

Oh, and the ladies will take lemonade instead of brandy, if you please.

Have a wonderful holiday, all of you who are celebrating.

Image from NYPL Digital Gallery, of an 1850s Fourth of July upon the Hudson, from Harper's Magazine.

That Cosmopolitan Girl, 1887

Here is what the well-dressed modern young woman might have been wearing under her fashionable dress in the late 1880s. And these undergarments are both hygienic and artistic - a winning combination indeed!

Mrs Fletcher's rival, Mrs. E.M. Van Brunt, was the subject of an earlier post here (hence the link!).

I am trying to imagine what exactly a Breakfast Corset would have been like. Was it looser, so you could eat pancakes? And Corselettes were to be worn at the seaside under your bathing costume, apparently. Wait at least an hour after breakfast before you change into the Corselette, though.

This advertisement is from an 1887 Cosmopolitan magazine (way before the Helen Gurley Brown era).

Brooklyn's Favorite Palmist

A lady called Mrs. Hicks was "Brooklyn's favorite palmist" according to an 1898 classified ad - and indeed, she had something for everyone. She was a "life reader," reunited loved ones, removed "evil influences," and gave advice of all kinds. In the third week of November 1898, she had a special going in which you could get your future husband's photograph free with a reading.*

The psychic Mrs. Hicks was also a Dermatologist who helped "Ladies Reduce Your Weight, Busts Etc. 5 Lbs Weekly, without medicine" - advocating modern weight-loss hypnosis decades ahead of her time.

She was also an "astro-palmist," an astrologer, and a student of then-famous magician Alexander Herrmann (pictured below), who lived in nearby Whitestone, Queens in the late 19th century (he had just died in 1896). She belonged to the Order of the Magi (see Note below). She predicted election results (she probably meant the 1896 Presidential election - William McKinley won). And she had read 5,000 palms at the 1898 Omaha World's Fair (which she calls the "Omaha Exposition."The Temple of Palmistry at that Fair is shown, above right.

One Eagle ad refers to "Mrs. Hicks Edgar, the celebrated clairvoyant and trance medium of the West," which seems to indicate that she was not originally from New York. She may have been a New Yorker who went out West for awhile, though.

One possible Mrs. Hicks is Catherine (Skidmore) Hicks, who in the late 1890s lived very close to Mrs. Hicks' known address in 1897-98. Catherine Hicks lived at 267 Schermerhorn in 1897, very near Mrs. Hicks Edgar's 1897 address, 359 State St. There was, as you might imagine, a certain tendency for the Brooklyn palmists to move around rather frequently, though in the same general neighborhood.

If I ever find any more clues about the life and identity of Mrs. Hicks, I will let you know. This is exactly the sort of hidden history that I am inspired by - and am sure that somewhere, somehow, more information must exist. It's just a matter of figuring out where it might be...

******
*This made me think of my third great aunt, Lydia (Newell) Hicks, who was a photographer in Brooklyn through the 1870s, whom I have been unable to trace after the mid-1870s. She was an independent, flamboyant woman and I certainly can imagine her reinventing herself as a clairvoyant. But there is no evidence that they were the same person.

Note: The Order of the Magi was an "astrological religion" founded in Chicago in 1889 by Olney H. Richmond, a homeopathic pharmacist (and champion checkers player) who was greatly interested in the occult and in reading the standard (as opposed to Tarot) deck of cards for divination purposes. He wrote several books about divination and Spiritualism. Also see Charles Clifton, Her Hidden Children (2006 ), p. 128, which refers to the Richmond's Order of the Magi as a "magical order." I may write a separate post about Richmond at some point, so have not gone into detail here.

SOURCES

Advertisements for Mrs. Hicks in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

March 21, 1897, p. 28 [Mrs Hicks Edgar, trance medium of the West, address 359 State St]
November 7, 1897, p. 17 [predicted election results - image above]
November 28, 1897, p. 23 [pupil of Herrmann - image above]
May 1, 1898, p. 25 [Mrs. Hicks, Dermatologist]
October 23, 1898 p. 28 [back from Omaha - image above]
November 20, 1898, p. 28 [free photographs]

Lain's Brooklyn City Directory for 1897 has been digitized at the Brooklyn Genealogy Information Page, and the page with the Hicks listings is here. Catherine, at 267 Schermerhorn, is the closest to Mrs. Hicks' known address of this time at 27 Willoughby. There is also a Sherley Hicks at 375 Jay (at Willoughby) whom I have not been able to trace (and might be male or female, as the name was used for both men and women).

The wonderful picture of Alexander Herrmann is from Live Auctioneers (it sold for $24,000!)
The photo of the Temple of Palmistry is from the Omaha Public Library.

The Magnetic Eye Cleaner

Riding in open motorcars back in the early 1900s, people tended to get a lot of dust and grit in their eyes. And steel and emery, too, apparently.

So the Novel-Idea Company invented this Magnetic Eye Cleaner, which you would pass over your eyelid in the hope that it would (somehow) get the bits out of your eye.

They have made it look rather like a magician's tool. But even though it was so exotic-looking, and came in a leather case, I would not have wanted to use this thing - would you?

From Popular Mechanics, March 1909.

Diploma In Parlor

Lady Gonzales was a late Victorian clairvoyant working in Brooklyn, a rival of Countess Habeba's. She sometimes worked with an assistant, "Mme Sabina, the great palmist," with whom she advertised in 1899 (the ad on the right is from 1901).

Lady Gonzalez had a diploma from the mysterious College of Science*, in the parlor for all to admire (perhaps the face-in-hand was the school crest). She charged four cents a question (three questions maximum) and gave, in return, detailed answers with "full names," a lucky birthstone and a horoscope.

But like Countess Habeba, Lady Gonzalez had a true name that was far more mundane. She was a lady named Amelia Phelps whose other job was running an employment and training center out of her home, the Young Girls' Home, where "ladies can obtain first class servants." Mrs. Phelps ran the Home in the late 1890s, at the same time as she worked as Lady Gonzalez. Both gave the same address - 236 Bergen Street, near Nevins.

In 1897, in the "Clairvoyants" column of the Eagle, there was an ad for Mme Gonzalez, for a Mme Zingarra of 236 Bergen, and for the Young Girls' Home employment agency, also at 236 Bergen. Mme Zingarra, a "world renowned palmist," may have been another name for Mme Sabina - whoever she really was. It must have been an interesting place to live.

Notes On Follow-Ups and Other Future Posts:

I was amused and intrigued to see, in the 1897 column, a large ad for a Mrs. Hicks, "scientific palmist," at 97 Duffield Street - Hicks, as many readers will already know, was my grandmother's surname. She was born in Brooklyn in 1889, and had many unusual relatives. So I am definitely going to check up on this Mrs. Hicks!

*The College of Science was a tremendous scam run by "Dr" Theodore White of Baltimore, who was sentenced to 3 years in prison in 1906 for his fraudulent activities. He and the College deserve their own post; I've begun the research for it, and will write it up over the next week.

**And I haven't forgotten about Fred Bell and the wrongful death case, either. It is also in the works. Stay tuned.

Sources

Amelia Phelps in the 1897 Lain's Brooklyn City Directory, transcribed here at the Brooklyn Genealogy Information Page.

Ads from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

December 5, 1897, p. 10. (Gonzalez ad followed directly by Young Girls' Home ad, and by Mrs. Hicks)
August 8, 1899, p. 11.
October 5, 1899, p. 10.
November 24, 1901, p. 28.

Victorian Talking Head

Nowadays when someone mentions the phrase "talking head," one either thinks of a TV expert or the 1980s band Talking Heads. But back in the 1840s, you might think instead of the lady on the left.

Phineas T. Barnum, the great Victorian showman, was delighted with his Talking Machine, though it was not one of his more popular exhibitions. I don't know why, exactly - perhaps it was too bizarre an experience for most people, to type letters and make a large head talk. It did have one eminent fan, though, as you will see.

The Automaton consisted of an artifical woman's head in a box frame, attached to a keyboard. When the keys were pressed, the head appeared to speak words and phrases. It was called the "Automaton Speaker." Barnum wrote in his autobiography that it had been invented by "an elderly and ingenious" German named Faber.

Barnum showed this machine along with other curiosities at Egyptian Hall, London in 1844. Egyptian Hall, in Piccadilly, had been built in 1812 and was used for art exhibits and entertainments of various kinds. By the late Victorian period it was used mainly for Spiritualist and magical performances and exhibits.

When the Duke of Wellington visited this exhibit, he was convinced that a ventriloquist was providing the voice of the machine. But when he tried the keys for himself, and was able to make the head speak in English and German thereby, he was pleased. Wellington then wrote in the exhibitor's autograph book that he was very impressed, after all.


Sources:

Phineas T. Barnum, The Life of P.T. Barnum (1855), p. 135.

Mathew Brady's 1865 photograph is from Picture History.

Poster of Egyptian Hall courtesy of the British Library.

Picture of exterior of Egyptian Hall from Wikipedia.

Electricity In Tabloid Form

The fountain of youth? Forget about it! What you really want is a battery in a "polished metal case" - and soon you will morph into an 8 year old girl.

The phrase "electricity in tabloid form" refers to the electrical power being condensed, as per the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, see here.

You can also use this battery for "Electric Baths" and "Beauty Massage" - both of which sound rather terrifying, the former in particular. Taking a battery into a bathtub will not give you vitality and new life - and even that girl in the picture knows that. She is looking mighty cynical about the whole thing, anyway, come to think of it.

From Popular Mechanics, March 1909.